Republican reiterates call to shut down terrorists' Twitter accounts

Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) on Tuesday afternoon repeated his call for a ban on the ability of U.S.-labeled terrorist groups to deliver messages via Twitter.

"Foreign terrorist organizations like al Shabaab, Hamas, Hezbollah, [who] all use an American company, Twitter, to recruit other extremists," Poe said on the House floor.

"They spread their anti-American propaganda and preach violence and murder. Hamas has over 42,000 followers. Their tweets have included everything from calls for jihad attacks to a new Holocaust. Isn't that lovely?"

Poe is one of seven House Republicans who called on the FBI earlier this year to shut down the Twitter accounts of groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Shabaab in Somalia. On Tuesday, he said the Supreme Court has made rulings that would justify shutting these groups out of Twitter.

"The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that when there's a 'broader strategy to promote terrorism,' foreign terrorist organizations are not protected under free-speech rights," he said. "We should be doing everything we can to disarm our enemy, whether that means freezing their bank accounts or freezing their Twitter accounts.

"Allowing foreign terrorist organizations to freely operate on Twitter is enabling the enemy. The FBI and Twitter must recognize sooner than later that social media is a tool for the outlaw terrorists, and it has to stop."

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